Daily Dialogue — January 2, 2016

WOODY: Where’s my teeth?
DAVID: You lost your teeth? Did you leave them at the motel?
WOODY: No.
DAVID: The tavern?
WOODY: I wasn’t in no tavern.
DAVID: Did you leave them at the place where they serve alcohol that you don’t call a tavern?
WOODY: Must have been when I fell by the tracks.
DOCTOR: Considering it’s a pretty bad head wound, his age, and history of drinking, I think we should keep him in the hospital a day or so for observation.
WOODY: I don’t drink.

— Nebraska (2013), written by Bob Nelson

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Drunk. Today’s suggestion by katha.

Trivia: Unlike the alcoholic and limping character of Woody, Bruce Dern is a teetotaler who was an avid marathoner, and still practices running in his late 70s.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Katha: “For David, quite every strange behavior of his father is connected to his drinking. Beyond his imaginary million-dollar price Woody’s main theme is his denial of his alcoholism. Both come together in this scene.

But what I like the most: Loosing your teeth is pretty unimaginable — as long as you don’t know people with artificial teeth. I heard it several times from elderly people that it happened to them, people, who don’t have a drinking problem. Okay, Woody wouldn’t have lost his teeth, if he wouldn’t have felt on the tracks, if he wouldn’t have been drunk. But there is still a part there where we want to believe him. Even though we know that the price is a fake we still want to believe in Woody. And at least he is right — he lost his teeth by the tracks.”